Annalee Grace Sullivan was born on April 7, 2003 and lived the life of a playful, spiritually sensitive, musical child until she was 3 1/2 years old. On January 21, 2007 she suffered an hypoxic brain injury from a seizure caused by undiagnosed Addison's Disease.
In spite--or because--of her physical and cognitive limitations, Annie was a blessing to all who knew her. She died on March 25, 2011, and today stands in the presence of Jesus--completely whole and without disability.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Loose teeth and leap frogs

Well, enough about Bill--he had a latte this morning and a (small) piece of pizza tonight, so I'm thinking he's all better. Now we can get back to the main character of this blogodrama--Annalee.

Annie has sensory issues. She doesn't like her head touched, hair combed, or teeth brushed. She was pretty much like that before her brain injury, only now she screams and thrashes about when I attempt to do those things to her. So her teeth. Really, I need to schedule a professional power wash about once a month, because she usually screams me into submission so I only get to the outside-around-the-perimeter before I give up. But this morning, I thought I should be a little more persistent. Now remember, Annie is 6. She lost her four lower teeth last year sometime, but none of the upper teeth. I have been thinking though, that one of these days, the upper ones are going to come loose, and then I'll have to gingerly sneak into her mouth before she realizes what I'm doing, and try to pry it off.

There was one Sullivan kid who hated to have his teeth pulled so much, he actually left them in there and the new ones just grew behind so that eventually he looked like a shark with multiple rows of teeth. But I digress.

I also forgot to mention that Annie's had a runny nose and been drooling for a couple of days. Not sure if it's allergies, or if she's cutting her 6 year molars or what. So there I was this morning, trying to be a good mom and do a good job brushing my uncooperative daughter's teeth, when the toothbrush hooked onto a loose front tooth. Great. Now, Annie's not only screaming, she's bleeding too. And, because she's drooling, it looks pretty scary. I make a feeble attempt to actually extract the thing, but her screaming increases to ear-splitting decibels, so I retreat to just dabbing and patting with cold wash cloths. As of this evening, the tooth is still there, sticking out at a weird angle, making her look like a candidate for major orthodontia. And, Annie clamps her mouth shut when I get the kleenex out. My fear is that it'll come out while she's sleeping and Lord knows where it'll end up--hopefully under her pillow.

Other miscellaneous news: Annie's been making good use of her Kidwalk at school, and walks up and down the hallways at school by herself now. She's also been scooting around the living room on her rump getting whatever toy might be just out of her reach. Lots of good mobility progress.

Also this week she bonded with a "Leapfrog" toy that sings the ABC's. Up to now, she hasn't shown any special connection to a particular toy since the brain injury. But a few days ago, I brought this frog out of storage, gave it to her, and she immediately bonded to it--not throwing it, like she usually does with every other toy--and then--started talking to it! Not words that I could understand, of course, but she actually looked at the frog and talked to it. So different from her responses in the past 3 years when I've put a doll she used to drag all over the place in front of her, and she'd just ignore it, or look at it without reaching for it or even touching it.

Interesting that it's a frog that she likes...

Jean

"...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6